Morning all.
With Liverpool’s clear interest in Isak, the general consensus in the media is that the Merseyside club will run away with a second Premier League title. Isak, Ekitike and Salah will blow opposition teams aside with ease. A strange view I think as Isak, as good as he is, hasn’t lifted the Premier League with Newcastle despite being surrounded by good players. Ekitike is playing in England for the first time in his career and Salah, well, he’s getting older by the day. We all are I know but in football, it makes a big difference.
I’m pretty sure Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal and perhaps one or two other clubs will be just as competitive as Liverpool this coming season. All who have strengthened their squads in January, this summer, or both.
As well as new players joining Arsenal this summer, new coach Gabriel Heinze arrived too and as reported in The Athletic, he was working on defending diagonal balls with Lewis-Skelly. The ex international left-back has spent a significant amount of time working on defensive strategy with our young defender/midfielder.
Apparently, Heinze has made a big impression on the training ground — he is forthright, direct and frequently loud. Certain players relish that coaching style; for others, it requires some adjustment. A view of The Athletic.
The tour of Asia not only showed off our summer signings but, a few of Arsenal’s academy players made a bit of a name for themselves too. Max Dowman, Josh Nichols, Marli Salmon, Tommy Setford, Ismeal Kabia, Alexei Rojas, Andre Harriman-Annous and Louie Copley were all in Asia.
Max is unbelievable,” said Declan Rice after the game. “There’s a lot of talk about Max and how good he is. But there are also five or six other young lads who also play tonight. Marli (Salmon), Josh Nichols, Louie Copley, who was on the bench. The group that have come with us have actually really, really surprised me. It’s the first I’ve seen of a lot of them — just how composed they are, calm they are for 15, 16 years old. It’s way different to how I was. They play with no fear and we’ve got a really good crop of youngsters coming through. Obviously Max will get the talk, but there are a lot of other players as well that are really, really special. We’ve got a lucky future ahead of us with these players coming through.”
High praise from Rice but as we know, the Premier League can be brutal. Perhaps that’s the benefit of playing two Premier League clubs during pre-season because Mikel Arteta got to see how a few of youngsters coped against a physical Newcastle United team as well as a north London derby. AC Milan are no softies.
By the time we go to Old Trafford, not only will Viktor Gyokeres be more familiar with his teammates and how Mikel Arteta operates but the rest of the squad will be more tuned into how the team will play this coming season too.
Our football has to be different because up front we have a physical presence which we have not had before. Yes, we have Kai Havertz but when it comes to strength, physicality and utter determination to score goals, Gyokeres wins in my opinion. But just like with any striker who is hungry for goals, he needs to be fed, so our creative players need to be more creative. We know what Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard and Ethan Nwaneri are capable of, but my only niggle is that our play from the left side is not as strong as our right. I know, I’m even boring myself now but I think that’s why Arsenal are being heavily linked with Eze. Predominantly right footed he might be but he’s used to playing on the left. Whether or not Eze will end up at Arsenal I’ve no idea but if he does, I’ll be happy.
Catch up in the comments.
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Morning Campers and Rico.
So far Berta has upgraded on Neto (Kepa), Sterling (Gyokeres), Jorginho (Nordgaard), Tomiyasu (Mosquera) and Partey (Zubimendi), the jury is out on Madueke but if Trossard is sold then that’s another upgrade, fingers crossed.
So the 25/26 squad on paper (yeah I know ‘on paper’ never won anything) looks fitter and better than 24/25.
Given that it’s likely that Hein, Nelson, Lokonga and Vieira will depart this month that gives us a squad of 22 with 3 spaces open.
(MLS and Nwaneri are still U21 as is Dowman who is U16).
If Zinchenko and/or Trossard leave that number falls to 20 + 3 youth players.
Arsenal haven’t taken anyone on loan this window (yet) which is a definite Berta improvement over Edu and leaves the club some room in manoeuvre in January if we need a short term solution?
So given our financial model is similar to Liverpool’s there should be room for one of possibly two more additions if our sales can generate some finance along with the reduction in wages.
We might just have to wait until the season kicks-off before further incomings are made?
Apparently a Portuguese club enquired about Kiwior last month, I’m a bit surprised that other Premier League clubs aren’t interested in him, he’s not on a prohibitive salary and the transfer fee is affordable and he’s a damned good defender! I think if we got a fair offer that the club would sell him but you’re not going to get sensible offers from Portugal or Italy.
Morning Kev, just why I don’t think we’re done yet as far as transfer go but as you say, we need a few sales to go through.
If any further signings are PL or even Championship players, at least they won’t need to get used to a new country etc..
I’d rather we kept Jakub.
G’day Rico, Kev.
We should see more variety in our playing style in the new season with Heinze coaching.
57 varieties? 😉
Me too, Rico.
Unless he wants a move we should hang on to him, no need to sell, and certainly no need to sell cheap.
Morning Cicero. Ha ha.
He was good during our CL run. Very good. To find someone better would be expensive and it’s in attack we lack bite. Saying that, I do have worries about Raya. His pre-season form has been really off.